- Last year I watched a program on the Discovery channel about what would happen to life on earth, over a very long period of time, if human-beings suddenly vanished. One of the theories put forth during the TV show was that certain cephalopods (squid and octopi) would emerge as the next intelligent creature. The reasoning is rather sound. Cephalopods, with their eight completely independent limbs, have very complex brains. It wouldn't be much of a evolutionary leap for their brains to develop enough to create self-consciousness and creative thought. The following article kind of backs-up that idea by claiming cephalopods have consciousness:http://io9.com/5626679/three-arguments-for-the-consciousness-of-cephalopods